Business Central Essentials is the standard licence for finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, supply chain, project and warehouse management, and Premium is Essentials plus service order management and manufacturing. On Microsoft's US pricing page in October 2026, Essentials is listed at 80 dollars and Premium at 110 dollars per user per month paid yearly, with a limited Team Members licence at 8 dollars. The right choice depends mostly on whether anyone needs manufacturing or service management, and on how many people only need to view or approve.
This guide is for business owners, finance leads and IT admins who need to count licences before a Business Central purchase or a renewal. By the end you will know what each licence covers, how Device and External Accountant licences fit in, how entitlements override permissions, and how to turn a user list into a licence count. Prices are from the US page checked on 25 October 2026. They differ by country and channel, so treat them as a reference point.
The licence types at a glance
Microsoft Learn lists the paid user licences as Essentials, Premium, Team Member and External Accountant. It also says Microsoft 365 licences give read-only access to Business Central data, in addition to the Premium or Essentials plans, and that Device licences exist for shared devices.
| Licence | US list price (user per month, paid yearly) | Intended for |
|---|---|---|
| Essentials | 80 dollars | Full users doing finance, sales, purchasing, inventory and operations work |
| Premium | 110 dollars | Everything in Essentials plus service orders and manufacturing |
| Team Members | 8 dollars | Limited access: read data, approve workflows, create or update select information |
| Device | See your partner | Shared devices used by several people |
| External Accountant | See your partner | An accountant outside the company who needs access |
The pricing page does not state prices for Device or External Accountant licences, and Learn does not either, so ask your partner or check the Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide for current figures.
What Essentials includes
The pricing page's comparison table for Essentials lists:
- Finance management
- Sales and marketing
- Fulfilment and delivery
- Purchasing and payables
- Inventory
- Supply chain planning
- Project management
- Warehouse management
- Customisation and extensibility
- Multiple environments and companies
Microsoft's page also lists Copilot Credits, bought either as a pre-purchase plan or pay-as-you-go and needed for agent features; per-credit prices are not on the page.
What Premium adds
Microsoft's page summarises Premium as including everything in Essentials plus enhanced capabilities for service management and manufacturing. If your company does not run production orders, bills of materials or service orders, Essentials normally covers the same finance and operations needs for less. You can mix licence types in one tenant, so only the users who work in manufacturing or service need Premium. Check the licensing guide for the exact rules on mixing before you purchase.
Premium in a sandbox
Learn explains that since 2020 release wave 2, entitlements are enforced in sandbox environments too, so Premium-only functionality is not available in a sandbox without the right licence. To explore Premium features, use the free evaluation subscription or the Business Central Premium - Trial subscription that Learn mentions for partners.
Team Members, Device and External Accountant licences
Team Members
The pricing page describes Team Members as limited access to read data, approve workflows and create or update select information. Use it for people who approve purchase orders, look up customers or update a few records, instead of paying for a full licence. Confirm the exact rights, and whether full users need anything extra, in the Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide.
Device licences
A Device licence allows several users to use one covered device at the same time, such as a point of sale, shop floor or warehouse terminal. Learn describes how it works:
- Up to the number of device licences purchased, users in the Dynamics 365 Business Central Device Users group can sign in at the same time.
- You do not need to assign a Business Central licence to members of that group.
- Device users can set up scheduled job queue tasks. They are concurrent users, and while their tasks run, each counts against a device licence.
- A device user cannot be the first user to sign in. An Administrator, Full User or External Accountant must sign in first to set up Business Central.
To create the group, Learn gives these steps in the Microsoft 365 admin center:
- Go to Groups and choose Add a group.
- Choose the Security group type, then Add.
- On Basics, enter the name Dynamics 365 Business Central Device Users, spelled exactly in English with no extra spaces.
- Close the page, refresh Groups, select the group, choose View all and manage members, then Add members and save.
External Accountant
Learn lists External Accountant among the paid licences, and Device users cannot be the first sign-in whereas an External Accountant can. Beyond that the page does not describe its rights in detail, so read the licensing guide if your accountant works in your tenant.
Microsoft 365 licences
Per Learn, Microsoft 365 users can access Business Central data in Microsoft Teams using only their Microsoft 365 licence. This is aimed at people who take part in decisions when Business Central records are shared with them. For minimum requirements and supported plans, see the Business Central access with Microsoft 365 licences article.
How entitlements and permissions interact
Business Central online does not use the classic .flf licence files. Entitlements define which objects a licence allows, and each entitlement set maps to one of the Microsoft Entra service plans. When a user signs in, Business Central reads the service plan and applies the intersection of the licence entitlements and the permissions you gave the user. Learn states that entitlements have priority over permissions, so a user with SUPER permissions but a Team Member licence can still only reach the Team Member objects.
You can see the result on the Effective Permissions page, reached from the User page. This is useful when a user says they cannot open a page even though they have the right permission set: the cause may be the licence, not the permissions.
Purchasing and administration
Learn states that Business Central licences can only be purchased through the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) programme, so the pricing you pay comes from a partner quote and may differ from the list price. Other points from Learn:
- Licences cannot be temporarily assigned from one user to another. Short-term reassignment (within 90 days of the latest assignment) is allowed only to cover a user's absence or a device out of service, and other reassignments must be permanent.
- When you convert a 30-day trial company to production, the first user who signs in after the licence is applied must have a licence assigned. If an administrator signs in first, the trial continues until it expires.
Counting licences: a worked method
- List every person who signs in and group them by what they do: full finance or operations work, approvals and lookups, shared-device work, external accountants.
- Mark who needs manufacturing or service management. Those users need Premium.
- Assign Essentials to other full users.
- Assign Team Members to approvers and light users, if their tasks fit the Team Member rights.
- For warehouse or point-of-sale terminals, count the devices that will be in use at the same time and size Device licences to that.
- Multiply by the quoted prices. At the US list prices, 10 Essentials users and 2 Premium users cost 10 x 80 + 2 x 110 = 1,020 dollars per month paid yearly, before any Team Members, Device licences or Copilot Credits.
To connect Business Central with Microsoft 365 tools, see Business Central and Microsoft 365 integration.
Checklist
- User list grouped by what each person does
- Manufacturing and service users identified for Premium
- Approvers and light users evaluated for Team Members
- Device licences sized to concurrent use, with the Device Users group created
- External accountant access agreed
- A partner quote that reflects the CSP price, not just the list price
- First sign-in after licensing done by a licensed user, not an administrator, if converting a trial
Comments
Questions and tips are welcome. Comments are checked by the EpiFive team before they appear; please do not share passwords, phone numbers or other private details.